Two incumbents, one newcomer earn Bertie School Board seats
Published 2:39 am Wednesday, November 5, 2008
WINDSOR – Two of three Bertie County Board of Education members were reelected to their seats Tuesday night, according to unofficial election results.
Both Gloria C. Lee and Emma Johnson were able to secure a majority of the votes, but in the District One race for the school board, it was newcomer Pamela Chamblee who was favored by the people of Bertie County.
The closest of the three races was Chamblee’s victory over incumbent Melinda Johnson Eure. Chamblee secured 3,936 votes or 51 percent while Eure was selected by 2,695 votes or 48 percent of the vote.
Some of the precincts that helped Chamblee in her bid for the school board were Indian Woods (111-19) and the one-stop voting centers in Powellsville (625-354) and Kelford (338-219).
Eure’s biggest support came in her home precinct of Windsor II where she won the vote by a 298-31.
In District Five, Lee defeated the challenge of former board member George Drake by a final vote of 4,173-2,900. Lee took big wins in Colerain 2 (102-45), Indian Woods (94-30), Snakebite (125-34) and Windsor 1 (318-219). She also took convincing wins in the one-stop voting centers in Powellsville (521-336), Kelford (408-153) and Windsor (1,677-1,243).
Johnson was chosen to fill out the unexpired of Michael Bracy. She was appointed to the seat after Bracy’s resignation and won against two challengers to retain that seat for the next two years.
She garnered more than 50 percent of the vote against challengers Curtis Bryan and Seaton Poe Fairless, a former school board member. Johnson was named on 3,816 ballots compared to 1,976 for Bryan and 1,728 for Fairless.
As with other candidates, it was the one-stop voting that propelled Johnson to victory. She claimed 1,479 votes at the one-stop center in Windsor, easily outdistancing the 773 for Bryan and the 684 for Fairless. Johnson also won the one-stop center in Kelford where she had 422 votes. Bryan had 103 and Fairless totaled 93. She also won the one-stop center in Powellsville where she received 407 votes compared to 334 for Bryan and 234 for Fairless.
